Human dignity in concept and practice

David J. Mattson • Susan G. Clark

Published online: 6 January 2011� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC (outside the USA) 2011

Abstract Dignity seems to be something that virtually all people want. It is a seminal

expression of the human experience that gains authority through the convergent demands of

people worldwide. Even so, the human dignity concept is in unhelpful disarray. Dignity is

variously viewed as an antecedent, a consequence, a value, a principle, and an experience,

from philosophical, legal, pragmatic, psychological, behavioral, and cultural perspectives.

We ask which if any of these human dignity concepts will likely serve our global common

interests best, as both common ground and policy diagnostic? We examine four broad

themes: dignity as (1) a metaphysical justification for human rights and duties, (2) virtuous

comportment or behavior, (3) a perspective of ‘‘other,’’ and (4) a subjective experience of

the individual, contingent on a broad and equitable sharing of values. We recommend

viewing dignity as a commonwealth of individually assessed well-being, shaped by rela-

tionships with others, affected by the physical world, and framed in terms of values. Viewed

this way, the idea of dignity accommodates the priorities of both individualistic and com-

munitarian cultures. Conceiving of human dignity as a commonwealth of subjectively

experienced value production and enjoyment has many practical policy implications.

Keywords Human dignity � Human rights � Commonwealth � Policy � Values � Lasswell

Introduction

Human dignity is an idea that is often invoked in human affairs. It has deep emotional appeal

in diverse cultures worldwide (Howard and Donnelly 1986; Donnelly 1989) and in peoples’

D. J. Mattson (&)US Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Colorado Plateau Research Station,Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 5614, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USAe-mail: David.Mattson@nau.edu

S. G. ClarkSchool of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Institution for Social and Policy Studies,Yale University, 301 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511, USAe-mail: susan.g.clark@yale.edu

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Policy Sci (2011) 44:303–319DOI 10.1007/s11077-010-9124-0

daily experience through notions such as honor and respect (Kamir 2002; Statman 2002). The

widespread psychological and intellectual resonance of dignity may explain the frequent,

forceful calls for the use of dignity as a concept and practice to guide and judge the conduct of

individuals, organizations, and governments. Historically, dignity was a seminal idea in the

Bible, the Qur’an, and the philosophical works of Cicero, von Pufendorf, Locke, and Kant.

Contemporarily, it has been central to major national and international policies (see Lasswell

and McDougal 1992, pp. 725–786). The ensemble ‘‘International Bill of Rights,’’ the most

authoritative international call for greater human dignity, consists of the Universal Decla-ration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and CulturalRights, and its companion International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Eckert 2002;

Ritschl 2002; Weston 2008). Yet debate continues about how to understand and implement

human dignity and rights instruments (Weston 2008; see footnote 13, pp. 322–324). More

concretely, many people in the world today continue to live with indignity by anyone’s

standards—with hunger, fear, violence, or limited health care and education.

Our goal and method

Our goal here is to examine prevailing conceptions of human dignity for their usefulness as

global common ground and as a diagnostic, practically, and at all scales (individual to inter-

national). We start by outlining major conceptions of dignity and then we highlight a concept

of human dignity developed by Harold D. Lasswell and colleagues (Lasswell and McDougal

1992), which is based on ideas about values—their production, sharing, and enjoyment. We do

not exhaustively review the range of philosophical perspectives in currency today. Instead, we

emphasize and build on the dignity concept as articulated by Lasswell, hopefully in support of

improved practical outcomes of policy processes everywhere. Our interest is also not in

‘‘rights,’’ as such, although the concepts of rights and dignity are historically intertwined (see

references in this paper). More fundamentally, we seek to clarify our own standpoint regarding

the human dignity concept in ways that we hope are helpful to others. Our examination of

human dignity is both informed and limited by our individual lived experiences.

We use the principle of sufficiency to guide our thinking about human dignity in concept

and practice. Kaplan (1958) and Shils (1958) eloquently articulated pitfalls of ideology and

the related urge by many people to specify concepts exactly and reach definitional closure.

Ideological rigidity is insensitive to context and indifferent to the unique circumstances of

situations and people, thus often resulting in incivility and indignity for many. Yet some

degree of shared inter-subjective understanding of the world and its key symbols is needed

in order for both policy participants and policy analysts to collectively orient to situations

realistically. We seek balance between these two considerations in our provisional under-

standing of human dignity. We seek an understanding that fosters a collective orientation in

the service of dignity-enhancing outcomes, yet allows those individuals affected to specify

what forms dignity will take in specific contexts. In other words, we seek an understanding

of dignity that is neither under- nor over-specified in concept (and definition) and is yet

sufficient in practice to yield dignity in practical terms, in action.

The human dignity problem

Human dignity potentially serves as common ground in our efforts to identify and secure

local to global common interests in an increasingly interconnected world. Human dignity

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comes as close as any notion to being a universal good (Schachter 1983). Logically, people

need some shared understanding of human dignity if the concept is to serve instrumentally

and practically as common ground. Appeals that simply rouse emotions can motivate and

bring attention to issues, but such appeals may not provide enough orientation for people to

negotiate widely supported and effective policies. Arousal by itself also does not entail

discernment regarding the outcomes of behaviors, norms, and policies in people’s daily

lives. We assume that the global prospects for achieving a commonwealth of human

dignity would be enhanced by a concept of dignity that allowed for broad participation and

contextual sensitivity in application, yet was specific enough, transcending local contexts,

to allow for a productive global conversation (see Weston 2008).

As we see it, the concept of human dignity is in such disarray that it does not provide

even a minimally stable frame for global discourse and action (Freeman 1994; Ashcroft

2005; Caulfield and Chapman 2005). Much about this idea remains implicit or even

contradictory, in the service of diverse and sometimes contra-dignity ends (Macklin 2003,

2004). Dignity is variously considered by diverse people to be an antecedent, a conse-

quence, a value, a principle, an experience, and both a contingent and non-contingent

exhibition. It is viewed from philosophical, legal, pragmatic, psychological, behavioral,

and cultural perspectives. Some perspectives are marked by greater internal logical con-

sistency than others. Some conceptions are more useful in practical terms as a policy

diagnostic or as common ground in the pursuit of common interests. Despite the efforts of

diverse authors to evaluate this body of thought on human dignity (e.g., Donnelly 1989;

Freeman 1994), those involved in the global discourse about rights and dignity do not seem

to be clear yet about which perspectives and conceptualizations might best serve dignity

outcomes. We seek to aid, and hopefully, help clarify the concept and support meaningful,

practical applications.

Comparison of conceptions and perspectives

We look at four conceptions of human dignity for achieving enhanced common ground and

improved policies: (1) a metaphysical justification for human rights and duties, (2) virtuous

comportment or behavior, (3) a socially and psychologically rooted perspective of ‘‘other,’’

and (4) a subjective and felt experience. All of these conceptions are shaped, in some

measure, by the divergent highly variable contexts of two different kinds of cultures,

individualist and communitarian (Howard and Donnelly 1986; Park 1987; Kitayama and

Rose Markus 2000; Suh 2000). Our examination supports our concluding discussion on the

implications for the effective practice of human dignity policy, worldwide.

View #1: dignity as a justification for rights

Numerous philosophers and authoritative policies have asserted that humans are imbued

with intrinsic worth or value, reckoned as dignity (e.g., as summarized in Beyleveld and

Brownsword 1998; Arieli 2002; Cancik 2002; Starck 2002; Shultziner 2003). Moreover,

human dignity—our intrinsic worth—arises from the specialness of humans. Constructed

this way, the specialness of humans becomes a focus of attention. What is the nature of our

uniqueness and where does it come from? Philosophers have speculated at great length

about this question and, at least in the West, have converged on a general answer. Those in

the lineage of Cicero, Hobbes, Locke, and Kant link our specialness to our capacity for

reason and morality and thus our unique degree of autonomy (Donnelly 1982b, 1989;

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Gaylin 1984; Cancik 2002; Hayry 2004). More ancient and yet persisting, the Judeo-

Christian tradition asserts that our specialness arises from being created in the image of

God (Gaylin 1984; Freeman 1994; Stetson 1998; Starck 2002; Hayry 2004). We are

imparted a measure of God’s dignity by virtue of this similarity. Our autonomy and related

capacity for choice and morality are claimed by this view to be uniquely afforded to us by

God, in the image of God. By this reasoning, Western philosophers and theologians have

arrived at a more-or-less shared understanding of human specialness, imparting dignity.

Philosophers and sociologists have adopted two basic perspectives on the relation

between human rights and human dignity, at least in the Western tradition. According to

one construction, dignity justifies the bestowing of rights (Beyleveld and Brownsword

1998; Dicke 2002). Simply by being human we are all intrinsically special, thus, we

deserve rights, that is, entitlements. These rights or entitlements are described by some as

inalienable or unconditional (Dicke 2002), by others as conditional yet still strong claims

(Donnelly 1982b). For most, rights are primarily considered to be claims by individuals on

‘‘the state,’’ rather than claims by individuals on each other (Donnelly 1982a; Howard and

Donnelly 1986; Kunnemann 1995). States are seen as uniquely positioned to harm people,

with implications for peoples’ dignity. According to another construction, rights are a

means to the end of realizing human dignity (Donnelly 1982a). In other words, rights

enable us to develop fully those uniquely human traits of reason, morality, and autonomy.

Here again rights are claims against the state made to insure that humans exercise

autonomy (i.e., freedom) consistent with the realization of reason, morality, and autonomy

(i.e., well-being; Gewirth 1978).

Despite being widely embraced in the West, these perspectives about dignity have

major potential shortcomings in terms of logic, as a diagnostic of policies, and as common

ground (Rorty 1993). First, if human dignity is intrinsic and inalienable, it provides no

logical basis for the granting of rights or any other authoritative policies (Gewirth 1978).

By this reasoning, there is nothing that anyone can do to deprive a person of his or her

dignity. On the other hand, if rights and other policies are seen as a means of realizinghuman dignity, then the notion that dignity is wholly intrinsic needs to be revised. By this

construction, dignity is a potentiality, not a fully developed condition (Donnelly 1982a,

1989; Dicke 2002). The potential is intrinsic, not the realization. If so, then our capacity for

morality, which is contingent on autonomy and freedom, not only distinguishes us, but is

also the goal of dignity-focused policies. Construed as a potentiality to be realized or

protected, human dignity can serve both as a diagnostic and as an orientation for those

involved in policy processes.

But major potential problems remain. For one, although the Western conception of

human dignity and its relation to human rights is embraced by individualist cultures of

Europe, North America, and elsewhere, it is not widely accepted by people in commu-

nitarian cultures of Asia and Islam (Howard and Donnelly 1986; Donnelly 1989; Park

1987). Communitarian cultures tend to emphasize peoples’ duties and obligations rather

than their rights (Howard and Donnelly 1986; Suh 2000). Dignity arises from fulfilling

these obligations, typically involving acknowledgment by others. Duties are often to the

state, as an embodiment of collective dignity. Personal dignity is also typically constructed

around notions of honor, which is subject to being violated through public acts that

diminish the standing of the self, reckoned relative to others. All of this entails concepts of

dignity different from those that prevail in the West, with implications for the prescribing

of rights and duties. The constitutions of China and the former Soviet Union are prime

examples (Donnelly 1982a). Western notions of human dignity are indeed Western and,

when considered in detail, do not provide ready common ground for a global discourse.

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Moreover, when constructed as a potential condition, expressed in specific human traits

or grounded in relations with the divine, human dignity is intrinsically contingent, which is

antithetical to the universalist and non-contingent aspirations held by many in the West

(Freeman 1994). The construction of dignity as a gift from God has been used to justify

state intervention in private lives, under the claim that individuals have not fulfilled their

obligations as trustees of their dignity, an outcome abhorrent to many who make non-deist

universalist claims (Hayry 2004). And what happens to those people who adhere to dif-

ferent deities or none at all? Are they also irresponsible trustees to be suborned and

disciplined? On the other hand, if dignity is derived strictly from our capacity for reason,

morality, and autonomy, then what about those people who intrinsically have less capacity,

such as infants, children, the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped, or even the physically

disabled (Hayry 2004)? By our assessment, those who have tried to resolve these issues

have engaged in complex logic that leaves them either expressly dissatisfied or in the end

prone to triumphant but unconvincing leaps of logic (e.g., Gaylin 1984).

These aspects of Western concepts of human dignity have been resolved by policy

makers in what may be a pragmatic fashion. In virtually all the international declarations,

policy makers have cut the Gordian knot simply by declaring that all humans have dignity,

or by asserting the ultimate ‘‘value’’ of dignity (Schachter 1983; Ishay 2004). The same

holds for many national-level policies, including German law (Eckert 2002; Klein 2002).

These assertions are axiomatic, without specifying where dignity comes from, its attributes

in detail, or even its specific implications (Donnelly 1989; Igantieff 2001; Shultziner

2003). Moreover, dignity is typically used only as an over-arching rubric, explicitly ref-

erenced once or twice, without further specification in the details of the prescriptions or

policies (see summaries in Ishay 2004). Used this way, dignity serves as a rallying cry and

unifying aspiration largely because it is not specified (Igantieff 2001). This may have

served the purposes of those involved in historic policy processes, but such ambiguity does

not serve the purposes of policy analysts in judging the intent and outcomes of policies.

Nor does ambiguity serve the purposes of those who would like to see human dignity serve

a more expressly prescriptive purpose. We do not think that the notion of intrinsic dignity,

as historically employed to justify human rights, offers much to those diagnosing policy or

specifying universal common ground.

View #2: dignity as virtuous comportment

Dignity has been identified since ancient times with specific behaviors or comportments

and also, more often historically, with certain roles and identifications (Cancik 2002;

Hayry 2004). By this conception dignity is earned or expressed in terms that are socially

and culturally relevant to others (Stetson 1998; Shultziner 2003). This kind of dignity is

closely identified with virtue and virtuous conduct, signified by the esteem of others

(Beyleveld and Brownsword 1998; Meyer 2002). In this sense dignity is socially con-

structed around the presentation of the individual’s self and the reciprocal response of

others. As to the general nature of dignified behavior, there have been attempts to describe

it. Perhaps the most convincing of these has described dignity as a balanced exhibition of

demanded rights and completed duties (Stetson 1998). In other words, a dignified person is

neither obsequious nor ostentatious, neither slavish nor domineering. Mahatma Gandhi and

Martin Luther King have been offered as examples (Meyer 2002). Those who advocate this

concept of dignity claim that its widespread fulfillment would in fact make a better world

for all, in part by granting equal standing to responsibilities and rights (Beyleveld and

Brownsword 1998). This conceptualization is potentially prescriptive as well as contextual,

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in the sense that it allows for different cultural and societal notions about the dignified

balance between entitlements and duties.

Conceiving of dignity as virtue also has significant limitations. It says much about the

behavior of individuals and little explicitly about relations between individuals and the

state. What are the duties of the individual to the state and of the state to the individual? It

also offers little to inform or judge the efficacy of policy making, except perhaps to the

extent that it can be used to judge whether policies might foster dignified behavior or

punish its opposite. But still, is dignity only about human behaviors? Other understandings

of dignity (see below) suggest that physical and psychological deprivations are very ger-

mane, as is society’s distribution of power and wealth, whether or not it is directly

attributable to the dignified or undignified conduct of individuals. Perhaps by stretching the

point one could argue that indignities often originate somewhere in undignified behaviors.

But this kind of stretching is perhaps more about defending a conceptual position than

finding a useful and potentially unifying framework.

View #3: dignity as a perspective of other people

A third conception of dignity relates to the extent that self ascribes dignity to other,

independent of others’ conduct (Ritschl 2002). This is related to the first two conceptions,

but it is worth differentiating because of its social and psychological implications. This

perspective of others, based on the bestowing of dignity, is not the same as a philosophical

stance (although potentially informed and sustained by one), nor is it the same as others

earning dignity through virtuous conduct (Honneth 1992; Chochinov et al. 2004). It is

about an initial, in some measure intrinsic, perspective of others that shapes social inter-

actions and has significant implications for how people treat each other.

This concept of dignity is intimately related to group dynamics and the process of

stereotyping. Dignity, or intrinsic worth, is often afforded to those with full standing as

‘‘humans,’’ typically those who are part of a stereotypic in-group (Bandura 2002; Haslam

2006). Outsiders are typically considered less than fully human, with lesser claims to

dignity. This group-delimited difference in a person’s bestowal of dignity is often the basis

for demonization and, ultimately, persecution of out-group members (e.g., Koonz 2003).

The self-constructed denial or deprivation of others’ dignity is typically part of the con-

ditioning that allows soldiers to kill ‘‘the enemy’’ (Igantieff 1998) and torturers to distance

themselves from their victims (Conroy 2000). This dehumanization has been described adnauseum for notorious episodes of abuse, genocide, and torture, including the dynamics

that prevailed in Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and more recently Rwanda and

Darfur (e.g., Glover 1999).

In contrast, the inclusive granting of dignity to others by the individual has been equated

by Shalom Schwartz with ‘‘a broad moral universe,’’ motivated by valuing universalism

(Schwartz 2007) and, according to Glover (1999), sustained by moral resources. Univer-

salism has been associated with altruism, both humanistic and biospheric (Schultz 2000,

2001), meaning that granting dignity to others can be accompanied not only by a will-

ingness to sacrifice oneself in the service of others, but also by affording dignity to other

species. Some philosophers object to such broad endowment, reserving the notion of

dignity for humans alone on the basis of principle (Stetson 1998). Yet, in practice the open

and generous personality that is inclined to treat animals ‘‘with dignity’’ is also often the

type of personality inclined to grant full dignity to all sorts of humans. Such a person’s

perspective is typified by respect for others, which, along with universalism, is a value that

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has been closely identified with the conditions that are necessary for the realization of

human dignity (McDougal et al. 1980).

This notion of dignity is largely about psychologically-rooted perspectives shaping and

being shaped in turn by social dynamics (Honneth 1992; Chochinov et al. 2004). Clearly,

how we each afford dignity to others affects our daily behaviors and, if we are voters or

policy makers, it also informs the content of our policies. However, this conception does

not say anything explicit or diagnostic about the elements of others’ dignity. As an analyst,

one might consider the psychological and social dynamics of affording dignity to others to

be critical. And, at the same time not be able to specify how people were constructing these

bestowals, or what constituted dignity-granting versus dignity-depriving actions from the

perspective of self, much less from the perspective of others. For those interested in

promoting human dignity, the granting of dignity by states or by individuals to others

seems more a desired outcome or effect rather than a useful diagnostic or basis for broad

common ground.

View #4: dignity as a subjective experience

We find it interesting that although the notion of dignity as a subjective human experience

is pervasively implicit to the discourse of human rights and dignity, it is rarely addressed

outright. In fact, the subjective experience might be considered central to dignity, in that

each human is the final arbiter, both as someone affecting others and being affected in turn

(Honneth 1992; Johnson 1998; Igantieff 2001; Statman 2002; Pullman 2004). Given that

our individual subjective experience is a key element of our ability to act and thus a key

facet of what many consider to be human (Haslam 2006), it seems paradoxical to impose a

notion of dignity that is wholly trans-subjective, that is, it ignores people’s subjective

experience, being based on principle alone. The very premise that philosophers, working

from first principles, should construct a notion of dignity that is designed to shape policy

with widespread implications for individuals seems, in itself, to disregard dignity (e.g.,

Igantieff 2001; Donnelly 2007).

The notion of the subjective experience of dignity is everywhere in writings about

human rights. Dignity is something to be realized through the individual human experienceof autonomous choice in the domain of the political; of happiness, well-being, self-esteem,

and psychological integrity in the domain of the psychological; of belonging to a group or

culture, adhering to a set of norms, with access to approval, respect, and recognition in the

domain of the social; and of access to security, food, shelter, and physical integrity in the

domain of the material (Gewirth 1978; Donnelly 1989; Dicke 2002; Downie 2004; Ishay

2004). Ultimately, all of this is about an emotional and cognitive experience, ineluctably an

experience lived and felt by individual people (Damasio 1999). Viewed this way, dignity is

not a principle, but rather a subjective integration of an individual’s experience of the many

facets of human life, and it is a judgment made by each person for him or herself, informed

by culture, social interactions, and physical experiences (Honneth 1992).

As it turns out, many statements of human rights (e.g., Kunnemann 1995), including the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, address many if not all of these dimensions of a

felt experience of dignity (Ishay 2004). Some might argue that this convergence of notions

about rights has been driven by unified and compelling philosophical constructions of

human dignity. But we find little evidence for this. More plausibly, one could argue that

this convergence has arisen simply from evolutionary, social, and psychological givens of

the human condition, manifest in humans collectively seeking in some measure to maxi-

mize perceived benefits for themselves, reckoned according to all relevant values (e.g., the

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maximization postulate, Lasswell and McDougal 1992; see also Gewirth 1978 and Cassin

in Ishay 2004: p. 222). By this second argument, philosophical arguments about dignity are

merely derivatives of preexisting givens, rather than the authors or arbiters of truth

regarding this concept. Even so, all semantic constructions of meaning are grounded in

precepts. The question remains, at least as framed by this analysis: Which precepts are

more helpful as a basis for global common ground and for insightful diagnostics of policy

processes?

Lasswell’s conception of individual dignity and the commonwealth

A comprehensive approach to human dignity was developed by Harold D. Lasswell and

colleagues, who offered a way of thinking about dignity as a subjective experience of the

individual human, with direct relevance to finding common ground and judging policy

processes (Lasswell and McDougal 1992). These authors organized their notion around the

creation and sharing of values, which are directly related to human subjectivities, with

practical implications for dignity-related outcomes.

A conception of human dignity in value terms

In this context, values are understood in a specific way, as ‘‘things’’ that people seek from

the world at a functional level (e.g., enduring or over-arching goals). According to Las-

swell and Kaplan (1950), these values can be understood as power, wealth, well-being,

respect, rectitude, skill, enlightenment, and affection. Affection, respect, rectitude, and

power have been called deference values, that is, values with particular relevance to social

relations or the creation of social space within which people can realize their dignity.

People seek and share these values through cultural and institutional arrangements, in ways

that are shaped by their expectations, desires, and perceived needs. Lasswell and McDo-

ugal (1992) argued that dignity arose from people being able to access some optimal level

of all these values and that political, cultural, and other institutional arrangements, orga-

nized around dispositions of power, largely governed this outcome (also see McDougal

et al. 1980).

This construction of dignity as a subjective experience organized around values poses

some difficulties. If dignity is an individual experience, connected to gaining certain

desired values, then how does dignity relate to collectives and policy processes? And what

determines in practice—and perhaps even in principle—the optimal level of realized

values attached to the individual’s experience of dignity? One strong argument made

historically against construing dignity as a subjective individual experience is that, by this

standard, any behaviors, even those generally considered abhorrent, might qualify as being

consistent with dignity, depending on the individual’s standpoint (Stetson 1998). It is here

that Lasswell’s concept of a commonwealth of human dignity becomes central (Lasswell

and McDougal 1992). Framed as a commonwealth, individuals are still the fundamental

unit of experience, but dependent on others.

Expounding on the notion of a commonwealth, Lasswell and McDougal (1992: 740)

state that the sharing of values carries two sets of meanings, one ‘distributive,’ the other

‘formative.’ The distributive is in reference to participation in the control of valued

outcomes, described according to the degree of equality or inequality, which is essentially

about dispositions of power. The formative meaning suggests that the amount of a given

value available for sharing may be augmented. In general [they said], ‘‘…we are in favor of

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higher levels of outcome since we are concerned about the size of the cake as well as the

proportional size of the slices.’’ In sum, Lasswell and McDougal proposed that a com-

monwealth of human dignity is achieved when: (1) as many people as possible are

involved in deciding what the community ought to produce in terms of both welfare and

deference values, (2) the community is successful in producing these outcomes, and (3) the

people of that community share broadly in the benefits. This was their formula for

achieving dignity, not dignity itself.

Over the mid- and long term, dignity can, in fact, be understood as a co-created phe-

nomenon contingent on the aggregate exchange of values among all members of a com-

munity (Donnelly 1989), and in modern times the community is increasingly

interconnected and global. Viewed this way, not all value orientations or realizations at the

individual level are consistent with attaining and sustaining a commonwealth of dignity.

All individuals, including the privileged, have a stake (perhaps not always consciously

appreciated) in this consideration because of the volatilities, instabilities, and related

pervasive deprivations inherent in despotic governance dynamics. In this context, despo-

tism can be understood as the on-going concentration of most values in the hands of the

few at the expense of the many, typically established and perpetuated through inequitable

distribution of power and wealth. From a pragmatic perspective, optimal value orienta-

tions, evidenced in people’s personalities and behavior, would lead to experiences of

dignity by the largest possible number of people (Lasswell and McDougal 1992). Dignity

then is no longer about the ego in isolation but rather about the ego in the context of

community, curbed by conditioning, conscience, and the superego (Gewirth 1978).

What is the optimal configuration of value orientations and realizations at the individual

level, consistent with a commonwealth of human dignity? Lasswell (1948) and McDougal

et al. (1980) speculated about this, phrasing it in terms of democratic character. Their

perspective was Western and their emphasis was on respect. Respect engendered a fun-

damental recognition by the individual of the standing of others in collective value

dynamics, that is, the ‘‘right’’ of others to access values. This self-imposed granting of

opportunity to others can be based on a reasoned calculus, but more often it is presumably

based on rectitude—our internal moral compass, expressed in habitual perspectives and

behaviors that curb the self in accordance with our morally prescribed duties to others or to

society (Bandura 2002). Seen this way, respect is perhaps more usefully understood as a

self-imposed deference to others grounded in a moral stance. But not all forms of rectitude

are equal in this regard, which, coupled with some ambiguity in the relations of Lasswell’s

values to dignity, allows for the possibility of clarifying and extending Lasswell’s value-

based conception.

Expanding and clarifying Lasswell’s conception

The term ‘‘subjective well-being’’ (SWB) is common in the parlance of social psycholo-

gists, with some researchers further distinguishing ‘‘psychological well-being’’ from

‘‘physical well-being’’ (Oishi 2000). Psychological well-being typically means an emo-

tional and cognitive assessment of one’s overall life circumstances and experiences

(Diener and Suh 2000). Defined this way, psychological well-being bears a striking

resemblance to the concept of subjectively experienced dignity as well as to the suite of

factors closely identified with human rights (Park 1987; Triandis 2000). People tend to

experience greater subjective well-being when they are fed, sheltered, secure, and

acknowledged; when they live within a family and a community; when they are afforded

choice; and when they partake of a life of meaning—in other words, when they live a life

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of collective dignity (Fig. 1). These concordances suggest that the well-established and

globally-applied idea of SWB (e.g., Diener and Suh 2000) may be a useful means of inter-

subjectively assessing and monitoring the realization of a commonwealth of human dig-

nity. SWB is by no means perfect and is thought to contain Western bias, but still it is a

potentially useful metric and notion.

Lasswell’s well-being value subsumes both the physical and psychological components

of well-being as used by social psychologists (Lasswell and Kaplan 1950), which makes it

significantly less useful than SWB in certain contexts. Worldwide, SWB is strongly

influenced by material conditions (manifest in food, shelter, and health, and necessarily

tied to income) only up to a point, after which SWB essentially uncouples from these more

physical factors (Diener and Oishi 2000; Inglehart and Klingemann 2000). In other words,

peoples’ aggregate experience of dignity seems to be strongly influenced by wealth, and

the access to other values provided by wealth, largely under conditions of poverty. But

once people are no longer living in poverty, experiences of dignity seem to be dependent

largely on other values related to self realization (Inglehart and Klingemann 2000). These

empirical observations have been interpreted as supporting the often disputed but perhaps

fundamentally important points made by Abraham Maslow in the 1950s (Maslow 1954)

that people experience a hierarchy of ‘‘needs’’ that play a role in shaping their experiences

of dignity under different conditions (Corning 2000, 2003; Diener and Oishi 2000; Farmer

2005). For all these reasons, we find it useful to distinguish between the values of physical

well-being and psychological well-being, with psychological well-being most closely

identified with the integrative experience of dignity (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Values and their potential relations to human dignity, indicated by Psychological Well-being,mediated through the values of Respect and Rectitude. According to this conception, values are in somemeasure hierarchical, with many value dynamics experienced by individuals through the mediation ofRespect and Rectitude. According to Lasswell and McDougal (1992), all values shown can be sought both asends (scope values) and as means (base values). Value categories follow Lasswell and Kaplan (1950) andSchwartz (1992). See text for further descriptions

312 Policy Sci (2011) 44:303–319

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Lasswell’s rectitude value also suffers to some degree from being overly broad, espe-

cially when applied to dignity-related considerations. There are all sorts of rectitude, which

vary along one key gradient of being more or less inclusive, with implications for the

prospects for a global commonwealth of human dignity (Sagiv and Schwartz 1995;

Schwartz 2007). Rectitude that creates and maintains hard group boundaries and is

organized around traditional rules typically grants full human status and related opportu-

nities to realize dignity only to those within a favored group; everyone else is considered

less than human and less than fully deserving. By contrast, rectitude that fosters a sense of

duty or responsibility to all people, engendering rights, is clearly more consistent with a

globally-realized commonwealth of human dignity. Given this distinction, we have found

it useful to employ Shalom Schwartz’s schematic of values (1992, 1994), which differ-

entiates the ethical value stance of universalism (inclusive rectitude) from the ethical value

stance of tradition (exclusive rectitude, Fig. 1).

Lasswell’s respect and rectitude values have a potentially complex but important

relationship with each other and with all other values in the discourses and experiences of

dignity (Fig. 1). Respect and rectitude both expressly relate to the ‘‘oughts’’ and ‘‘shoulds’’

of life. Respect more closely aligns with the self-perceived entitlements, or unconditional

value demands, that we feel the world owes us (Dworkin 1977; McDougal et al. 1980;

Dicke 2002). Rectitude also pertains to unconditional demands, but unlike entitlements

expected for self, rectitude shows up partly in the form of self-imposed obligations or

duties to others. As unconditional demands arising from self, respect and rectitude are

perhaps closer than any other values to existential psychodynamics and the mechanisms

that all people erect to resolve their fears and anxieties related to meaning, responsibility,

isolation, and death (Yalom 1980). Thus, when people perceive that others or even

themselves have violated respect or rectitude demands, it is likely to have far greater

impact on their dignity compared to deprivations of any other value, short of severe

physical impairment (Schachter 1983; Honneth 1992; Wilkinson et al. 1998; Fig. 1).

Respect and rectitude also, logically, mediate how people experience deprivations or

indulgences of other values in that these other value dynamics are often cast in terms of

self-perceived entitlements, for example, when others owe us monetary payment for hours

worked under contract.

Implications for human dignity as a concept and practice

Dignity seems to be something that virtually all people want (Schachter 1983; Donnelly

1989; Caulfield and Chapman 2005). This aspiration plausibly emerges as a seminal

expression of the human experience, and not because philosophers have defined the con-

cept and exhorted its importance from first principles. We contend that the notion of

dignity has gained authority by the convergent demands of people, not by the arcane

haggling of philosophers (Donnelly 1989). Our collective aspirations to dignity plausibly

arise from our biological evolutionary past and from our confrontation with existential

concerns that have accompanied the emergence of human consciousness (Yalom 1980;

Damasio 1999). In some measure, philosophers have been helpful in identifying autonomy,

reason, and morality as central to dignity. But we would argue that these human traits are

not somehow a justification for affording humans dignity, but, rather, highly developed

features of our consciousness that make virtually all cognizant humans yearn for a dig-

nified life. Based on what people do and say, dignity seems to be a condition signified by a

sense of contentment, satisfaction, and wellness—an integrative evaluation of our lives and

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circumstances. Inherent to the very notion of dignity is the idea that dignity is ultimately

reckoned by each individual for him or herself. But dignity obviously does not arise in a

vacuum. It is shaped not only by our relationships with ourselves, but also by our rela-

tionships with others as well as our interactions with the physical world (as well-being, see

Kitayama and Rose Markus 2000). Viewed this way, each person’s experience of dignity is

inextricably coupled with that of others through the health and vigor of the commonwealth,

which may arise, in part, from the unique extent to which human biological fitness is

contingent on the institutions that we develop (e.g., Bowles et al. 2003).

Cultural and contextual relativism

We have provisionally concluded that key facets of a useful dignity concept include

subjective reckonings inextricably linked to collective experiences in a physical world of

real constraints. This framing of dignity is capable of encompassing the priorities of

individualistic cultures, featuring individual welfare, as well as the priorities of commu-

nitarian cultures, featuring group welfare, or at least individual welfare strongly couched in

terms of group considerations (Howard and Donnelly 1986; Park 1987; Kitayama and Rose

Markus 2000). Of relevance to policy, this framing also brings into focus the importance of

determining the balance between rights owed to individuals by those entrusted with group

power, and duties owed to others by individuals, often as interests aggregated to the group

level. Both are plausibly important to creating conditions that foster widespread experi-

ences of dignity (Gewirth 1978; Donnelly 1982a; Schachter 1983; Beyleveld and

Brownsword 1998; Shultziner 2003). To achieve this end, the balance between rights and

responsibilities will necessarily reflect physical, cultural, and social contexts. Although this

logic suggests that there is no a priori right mix of rights and responsibilities, it does

presume that the people who are affected will have maximal opportunity to shape relevant

policies, that is, to participate in shaping their own lives in ways reckoned to be culturally

authentic (Igantieff 2001; de Sousa Santos 2002). In practice, achieving authentic political

expression is complex and dependent on many factors; even in democratic societies

individuals give up much of their standing for pragmatic reasons alone, through the device

of electing representatives.

For those who seek universal truths based on first principles, such cultural relativism is

perhaps an anathema (Gaylin 1984; Stetson 1998). For many people active in the discourse

about human rights, the fear seems to be that relativism opens the door to convenience,

especially the convenience of those who currently hold power (Ishay 2004). Universalist

concepts are apparently seen as the only authoritative way to hold despots’ feet to the fire,

figuratively speaking. At root, this is an argument about power and politics, not principle or

rectitude (Rorty 1993), which begs the question: How does one in fact go about making the

world a better place for people? In order to answer this question, the ‘‘problem’’ is perhaps

better recast in terms of value despotism, which is almost always linked to gross

inequalities in the distribution of power and wealth nationally and internationally (e.g.,

Massey 1996; Wilkinson et al. 1998). Resolving this problem self-evidently requires

pragmatic processes and solutions, but, according to the conception of dignity that we have

developed here, the focus would necessarily be on alleviating poverty and empowering the

powerless (Gready 2003). Rights have an important role to play, primarily to counteract the

advantages held by power and wealth despots. But, by most conceptions, rights are also

about fostering a subjective human experience shaped by specific physical and cultural

circumstances, and they therefore necessarily reflect context (de Sousa Santos 2002;

Donnelly 2007). Without sensitivity to the contingencies of real people in real contexts,

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activists run the risk of a different kind of value despotism, organized around acontextual

rectitude (Igantieff 2001). Unfortunately, this kind of despotism has a history of being

either politically ineffective or highly destructive in practice (Gott 2002).

Value-based framing of dignity

We find a value-based frame to be useful in understanding the subjective experience of

dignity, to crafting policies to foster a commonwealth of human dignity, and to evaluating

policies and practices, both before and after they have been implemented. This was one of

Harold Lasswell’s many important insights (see also Freeman 1994). Values and value

dynamics provide a functional framework for talking about the experience of dignity,

because they encompass convergent forces arising from the common human experience

(e.g., existential concerns) as well as divergent forces arising from different contexts.

Psychological well-being constitutes an integrative value that captures the experience of

dignity, also potentially denoted by the widely-used psychometric of subjective well-being.

Respect and rectitude relate to internalized rights and responsibilities, and as such they not

only potentially mediate the experience of many value dynamics, but they also plausibly

govern experiences of self-worth and self-esteem, which seem to be central to experiences

of dignity (Suh 2000). Respect and rectitude are thus likely to be critical not only to

individual experiences of dignity, but also to realizing the commonwealth. Wealth also

mediates many value exchanges, with a unique ability to be concentrated. Such concen-

tration is often profoundly detrimental to those on the margins, most importantly because

poverty affects self-respect and access to resources such as food, shelter, and healthcare

that are central to physical well-being (Massey 1996; Wilkinson et al. 1998; Wilkinson

2004). Both physical well-being and affection plausibly constitute a sort of dignity bottom

line as survival values (Fig. 1; Schachter 1983; Honneth 1992; Corning 2000, 2003).

Sustained and widespread deprivations of either have profoundly negative consequences

for both individual dignity and the commonwealth (e.g., Kagan and Moss 1983; Sirgy

1986; Diener and Oishi 2000; Harper et al. 2003; Farmer 2005).

Power is a particularly important value in shaping dignity outcomes. More than wealth,

dispositions of power have perhaps the greatest impacts of any value dimension on dignity-

relevant dynamics (Lasswell and McDougal 1992; Veenhoven 2000; Igantieff 2001).

Power relates to notions of freedom, choice, and autonomy that have been central to the

discourse of rights and dignity (Dworkin 1977; Gewirth 1978). Power is about who has the

opportunity and authority to make what decisions about which matters. As a value power is

ultimately rooted in physical strengths and the socially sanctioned option to use violence to

enforce a decision. On a personal level power over one’s physical person is profoundly

important to one’s dignity (e.g., Honneth 1992; Hobbes in Ishay 2004). Torture is clearly

an extreme deprivation of a person’s power over his or her physical integrity (Glover

1999). Power then is plausibly central, primarily for instrumental reasons, which is why

people with a high need for power not tempered by other-oriented rectitude can be pro-

foundly destructive to the commonwealth of human dignity (e.g., Lasswell 1948; De

Jouvenel 1948; Lasswell and Kaplan 1950).

Personality is clearly important to the realization of individual and collective dignity.

Peoples’ value orientations matter. Achieving a match between what people want and what

the world provides, for all values, is logically part of the experience of dignity (Triandis

2000). At a personal level, extreme orientations toward any value likely result in chronic

discontent and resultant dissonance and anxiety (Ratzlaff et al. 2000). This is conceivably

as true for values such as rectitude and skill as for values such as power and wealth.

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Reasonable concurrence between aspirations and opportunities plausibly define the pros-

pects for emotional health and psychological well-being. But this all relates to the

immediate subjective experience of dignity. Some suites of value orientations are clearly

more compatible than others with creating and sustaining a dignity commonwealth. A well-

developed orientation toward deferential respect and universalist rectitude is perhaps of

greatest importance (McDougal et al. 1980; Schwartz 2007). But we suspect that valuation

of deference and universalism also needs to be coupled with a temperate orientation toward

power and wealth, as well as realizable orientations toward all other values.

A value-based subjective conceptualization of human dignity, framed in reference to the

commonwealth, potentially fulfills the standard of sufficiency. This notion allows for the

diverse ways that individuals experience dignity in different contexts as a subjective

phenomenon, but contingent on social interactions and the experience of dignity by others

as a commonwealth. As such, a value-based conception offers a potentially stable global

frame that invokes broad-spectrum functional values, including values related to duties and

physical well-being. Such a concept explicitly links to human rights, human social psy-

chology (e.g., subjective well-being), and non-Western perspectives that include attaching

greater weight to duties and obligations and less to individual entitlements and freedoms.

And yet this conceptualization potentially yields standards that transcend specific contexts.

It is hard to imagine any group of people experiencing a commonwealth of human dignity

when they have been excluded from participation in creating dignity-relevant policies and

practices, experienced widespread degradation, and been chronically deprived of basic

necessities such as shelter, food, and healthcare.

Conclusion

Human dignity, defined as a subjective experience of well-being contingent on the col-

lective sum of (inter-)individual experiences of values, has obvious implications for policy.

Following Donnelly (1989, 2007), rights are perhaps most usefully understood as a means

to the end of a commonwealth of human dignity, focused expressly on protecting those

who are vulnerable from abuses by those holding disproportional power and wealth.

Virtually by definition despots control the state (governance) apparatus, and thus rights are

logically constructed in terms of the individual vis-a-vis the state; although the implicit

goal is to curb people who are uniquely privileged by formal institutional arrangements.

Given this consideration, institutions include not only nation-states, but also other

authoritative social groups such as families (Igantieff 2001). In addition to rights, a sub-

jective notion of human dignity facilitates engaging with potentially all aspects of policy,

including decision-making process outcomes and effects. Given the potential contingency

of dignity on the full spectrum of value dynamics, one could judge virtually all policy

making by whether it enhances or degrades the dignity commonwealth. Unlike rights, a

value-based understanding of dignity has potentially universal relevance as a frame for

appraising policy. It also has considerable utility for discourses about identifying and

securing local to global common interests. But exact configurations of the dignity com-

monwealth, as well as policies designed to bring it about, almost certainly vary with

culture, physical environment, and historical circumstance—there are unique contextual

considerations. Even though a value-based notion of dignity can help frame policy ques-

tions and practices, it is self-evidently true that only real people in real places can provide

the answers and actions (e.g., Igantieff 2001; Donnelly 2007). In the end, the local to

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global community will determine through deliberation and negotiation which conceptions

best serve their own various ends (Donnelly 1989).

Acknowledgments Ronald Brunner, Denise Casey, Andrew Willard, and David Cherney reviewed thismanuscript and provided helpful even inspiring input. An anonymous reviewer helped us clarify our writingand thinking about human dignity. The communities of scholars and students at the Yale School of Forestryand Environmental Studies and the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning also played a major rolein shaping our perspectives. Kate Kitchell and Mark Sogge of the US Geological Survey supported thiswork, realizing its relevance even to a bureau focused on biological research.

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